#  Astronomers detect first Earth-size planets orbiting another star 

 





December 20, 2011

 

 

In a milestone hailed by scientists as a key step toward finding another Earth-like world, astronomers Tuesday announced the discovery of two blazingly hot planets roughly the size of Earth some 950 light years distant.

The discovery “demonstrates for first time that Earth-size planets exist around other stars, and that we can detect them,” said Francois Fressin, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who led the discovery team.

The two planets orbit a star much like our sun, but they whiz around it so fast and so close that their surfaces sizzle like frying pans.

[Read the full Washington Post article](http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-12-20/national/35286899_1_kepler-20f-kepler-20e-francois-fressin).



 

 

 



 

 See also:- [ 2011 ](/years/2011)
 
 

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